Took me a while to realise this thread wasn't satire after all...

Focus is essential to the game, IMO. It forces decision-making in almost all aspects of its uses, which enhances the depth of the game. It also rewards good play and good decision-making.

To illustrate the first point, the presence of Focus makes deciding between a Barrel Roll or just a Focus an important decision with actual consequences for failure. If I'm thinking about Barrel Rolling but I'm not sure if it will get me out of arc or get me a shot, I can always fall back on the Focus as a last resort. The decision then becomes whether to risk making an error with my BR/Boost and be without Focus but potentially not getting shot back at all, or take the safe option and just Focus, knowing it will be generally useful but potentially getting shot at when I didn't need to. More meaningful decisions like that makes the game deeper and more interesting.

Focus can also be seen as a reward for good play. If I position my ship well so I'm out of my enemy's arc my reward is the generally useful Focus action to enhance my shots. If I get to range 3 behind an obstacle to avoid the worst of my opponent's fire the reward for my good play is enhancing my 4-5 green dice with a Focus rather than the relatively weaker (in this case) Evade. Also, the Focus action being useable on offense or defence means it creates more decision points throughout the game, allowing for a much deeper, more interesting experience. Do I spend my token on the attack, knowing I may need it when defending later? Or vice versa if I'm shooting later in the round? These are all decisions promoted by the Focus action.

Without the Focus action there's much less punishment for not BR out of arc because you misjudged the move. There's no real decision to be made about spending an Evade token since it's pretty much always best to spend it as soon as possible (not always, but usually). I don't need to make meaningful decisions on offensive modifiers either. In short, removing Focus from the game might actually be one of the worst ideas I can think of from a game design and depth point of view.

7 hours ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

I mean, come-on, a thread titled "X-Wing: Bad Game Design -- Focus" or"Why the Rebels are the Bad Guys!" is already presented in a way to just be provocative and flame up some conversation.

In fairness, "Why the Rebels are the Bad Guys!" sounds pretty tongue-in-cheek.

I see the forum dwellers' proclivity for pissing on any discussion that's not in lock step with the party line is alive and well. I simply don't understand why these folks can't just move on if they don't have something productive or constructive to add in a polite fashion. I mean, really, how insecure do people need to be to get their rocks off by making others feel bad with that much regularity? This is precisely the reason I don't post here very much.

Anyway, to further the discussion, I do actually agree with the folks that suggest that focus makes a good baseline "default" action that you use in times of uncertainty or if you don't have something specific that you need to do. However, I certainly don't think that it would harm the game to make some of the game's other actions better, if you want focus to be a little less ubiquitous.

My personal preference would be to propose that it's not focus that needs changing, but rather the target lock action. Right now, it doesn't really improve your chances of hitting vs a focus in any meaningful way. Sure, you have a chance to re-roll into a crit, but that's negligible. You can also save the lock if you end up not needing it for rerolls, but in my experience that doesn't happen all that much. I just don't think any of that is worth losing the defensive flexibility that you get with a focus token. Unless you know for sure you won't be getting shot at, or you really need to lock so you can fire ordnance, focus is just flat-out better.

Possible ways to improve locks would be to not require you to spend the lock in order to get the rerolls, or at least give it an effect similar to Fire Control System, where you can reroll some but not all of the dice without spending the lock. This would be very powerful, but would be mitigated by something else that I'd like to see happen to locks:

I don't like that lower-initiative ships get so boned by the order of actions. Now they're coming out with Passive Sensors to help with that, but I feel like locks should have been like that from the beginning. I feel that when you take a lock, you should be able to lock anyone in the play area. However, at the start of the engagement phase, you look at every lock on the table. If you are beyond range 3 of the target of your lock, your lock is discarded. I can go into the advantages of such a system at a later time if people don't fully understand the implications of this. (And yes, I realize that things like E-Wings and FCS would need to be tweaked in order to work with the new system).

A lot of the other actions don't need improving, IMO. Boost, barrel roll, turret rotating, SLAM, and Reload are all fine as is, because they are specific choices that are preferable to focusing if you need to do them. Maybe Jam could maybe stand to be a little longer ranged IMO (1-2 makes sense to me)? Evade does feel kind of weak if you don't have synergies to improve it, but this edition of X-Wing is clearly devoted to not having invincible dodging ships, so I can accept that.

20 minutes ago, MikeEvans said:

My personal preference would be to propose that it's not focus that needs changing, but rather the target lock action. Right now, it doesn't really improve your chances of hitting vs a focus in any meaningful way. Sure, you have a chance to re-roll into a crit, but that's negligible. You can also save the lock if you end up not needing it for rerolls, but in my experience that doesn't happen all that much. I just don't think any of that is worth losing the defensive flexibility that you get with a focus token. Unless you know for sure you won't be getting shot at, or you really need to lock so you can fire ordnance, focus is just flat-out better.

I think the comparison between Focus and Target Lock is somewhat misguided, as they fill different needs. It seems to me that Focus is primarily for dice-modding, while Target Lock is primarily for enabling Ordnance and abilities, with dice-rerolling being secondary.

Furthermore, Target Locks persist, so if you don't need the Focus this turn, you can grab a Lock and on a later turn have a Lock and a Focus.

9 hours ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

You made the claim

I did?

20 hours ago, Darth Meanie said:

This. I mean, if Evade is now basically a defense only Focus, why would you ever take it?

****, I thought I asked a question.

Quote

I mean, if I'm being honest, I feel like you and @Captain Lackwit are basically just trolling for the lulz at this point, which is a shame because you've both contributed a lot of positive stuff to discussions over the years.

Well, you would be wrong.

I have never been exposed to the concept of "Focus As the Currency of X-Wing" before, and I certainly don't use probability calculators to design my lists to the pico-percentile of success. So while this all seems very basic to you, I might have actually assigned an Evade action to a 3 Agility ship not realizing as a Math-Winger this is a silly thing to do, probability-wise.

I play the game because it is about Star Wars; the minutia of meta-gaming is something I am peripherally aware of but mostly could give a rat's *** about. With any luck, FFG will fulfill a promise about Epic and Narrative play and I can spend my energy on light and fluffy XWM pursuits.

2 hours ago, JJ48 said:

I think the comparison between Focus and Target Lock is somewhat misguided, as they fill different needs. It seems to me that Focus is primarily for dice-modding, while Target Lock is primarily for enabling Ordnance and abilities, with dice-rerolling being secondary.

Furthermore, Target Locks persist, so if you don't need the Focus this turn, you can grab a Lock and on a later turn have a Lock and a Focus. 

That's my entire argument.... that the "need" Target Lock fills is pretty niche in comparison to Focus. Focus covers more bases. And I did already say that the target lock persists in the text you quoted. As I said, I find that I don't often end up being able to save the TL for later if I'm trying to maximize my damage right now while I have a good shot.

On 4/6/2019 at 2:44 AM, PorgLeader said:

Gripe about Focus all you want, but the real downfall of X-Wing was the 2 Bank Left maneuver. 2 Bank Right was powerful enough as it was, but pairing it with a Left took things too far. Now every dial in the game has to have it just to be competitive. Ridiculous!

100% agree, I've even read the review!

*sick beat starts*

*Groans and booing ensue as fruit is thrown at the stage*

Uh-huh, turn it up...

Yo, it's ya boi, here to talk about focus

Finna separate the truth

From all the bogus

And I may seem uncouth

But I'm tryna show us

That we need a default action

For every faction

Something you can use

Without distraction

So if you need to choose

Yeah You got a move

A cool kinda move that gets you traction

All the other actions

They got their own niche

You use em' when you need to, and it's all kapeesh

But getting rid of a standard?

Heck naw, sheesh

You got target lock for use later

Or use on Vader

Use an evade if you wanna be an evader

Barrel roll and boost are for flexin' on haters

Gettin' out of arc, you're a dodge creator

You use reinforce when you're in trouble...

And don't want your ship to be a crater

Coordinate is useful,

For helpin' your friends

Reload is what you do

When you're charges are at an end

Yeah, focus is an action

We need to defend

It gives you a Shakespearean choice

"To spend or not to spend"

Focus is nessecary, and we can't pretend

That It dosen't stop dice variance

Yeah, upon focus we depend.

*drops mic*

22 hours ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

You made the claim that there was no reason to ever Evade because it was just a "defense only" Focus, then you asked why would anyone ever Evade instead of Focus. You don't get to be mad and play the victim when someone answers that question with the correct answer (math).

Also, I think you're conflating "understands intro probability" with "competitive player," and that's some problematic reasoning, to say the least.

I mean, if I'm being honest, I feel like you and @Captain Lackwit are basically just trolling for the lulz at this point, which is a shame because you've both contributed a lot of positive stuff to discussions over the years. Not sure if it's boredom with the game or what, but you guys seem to be increasingly posting incredibly-controversial click-baity titled threads and then act like the victim when people explain either why you are wrong or why they disagree. I mean, come-on, a thread titled "X-Wing: Bad Game Design -- Focus" or"Why the Rebels are the Bad Guys!" is already presented in a way to just be provocative and flame up some conversation. And aren't you the guy who posted that "Casual X-Wing is Dead" thread as someone who admittedly only ever played Epic in 1.0 and hadn't even yet tried 2.0 a the time of posting? And that whole "limited edition Vulture paint" dumpster-fire of a thread... yours too, right?

Why are you so rude? No, we're not trolling. I think the way Focus is implemented isn't good. I think it's basically a Battle Rifle level design choice. If it were up to me, it'd be a mod you get for being at range one offensively, (NOT extra dice). or range 3 defensively. Not. Extra dice. I simply believe that Focus has not been implemented well. It's too default. If you can you should always focus. Instead of repositioning unless that gets you out of arc. Instead of boosting, unless that gets you out of arc. You know what's worthless? Boosting into range one of something, because now you have zero dice mods, so it's a wasted action even though your move is great. Focus being the default action to such an extent is detrimental. But, you're just going to hurl insults again.

15 hours ago, JJ48 said:

In fairness, "Why the Rebels are the Bad Guys!" sounds pretty tongue-in-cheek.

I actually kind of meant that one if I'm honest. They really did end up leaving the galaxy in a worse state at the end of the day.

13 hours ago, Darth Meanie said:

I have never been exposed to the concept of "Focus As the Currency of X-Wing" before, and I certainly don't use probability calculators to design my lists to the pico-percentile of success. So while this all seems very basic to you, I might have actually assigned an Evade action to a 3 Agility ship not realizing as a Math-Winger this is a silly thing to do, probability-wise.

I play the game because it is about Star Wars; the minutia of meta-gaming is something I am peripherally aware of but mostly could give a rat's *** about. With any luck, FFG will fulfill a promise about Epic and Narrative play and I can spend my energy on light and fluffy XWM pursuits.

See, this dude gets it. I don't play X-Wing, or tabletops at all, to pull out a calculator and be a total joykill about things. I'm playing it because it's Star Wars, and Star Wars is (supposed to be) fun. When new releases come out I get psyched about the different ways I can use different things. Math-wingers will tell me all day that HLC T-70s are probably dumb, but they're pretty awesome when they work if you ask me.

17 hours ago, Jike said:

Took me a while to realise this thread wasn't satire after all...

Focus is essential to the game, IMO. It forces decision-making in almost all aspects of its uses, which enhances the depth of the game. It also rewards good play and good decision-making.

To illustrate the first point, the presence of Focus makes deciding between a Barrel Roll or just a Focus an important decision with actual consequences for failure. If I'm thinking about Barrel Rolling but I'm not sure if it will get me out of arc or get me a shot, I can always fall back on the Focus as a last resort. The decision then becomes whether to risk making an error with my BR/Boost and be without Focus but potentially not getting shot back at all, or take the safe option and just Focus, knowing it will be generally useful but potentially getting shot at when I didn't need to. More meaningful decisions like that makes the game deeper and more interesting.

Focus can also be seen as a reward for good play. If I position my ship well so I'm out of my enemy's arc my reward is the generally useful Focus action to enhance my shots. If I get to range 3 behind an obstacle to avoid the worst of my opponent's fire the reward for my good play is enhancing my 4-5 green dice with a Focus rather than the relatively weaker (in this case) Evade. Also, the Focus action being useable on offense or defence means it creates more decision points throughout the game, allowing for a much deeper, more interesting experience. Do I spend my token on the attack, knowing I may need it when defending later? Or vice versa if I'm shooting later in the round? These are all decisions promoted by the Focus action.

Without the Focus action there's much less punishment for not BR out of arc because you misjudged the move. There's no real decision to be made about spending an Evade token since it's pretty much always best to spend it as soon as possible (not always, but usually). I don't need to make meaningful decisions on offensive modifiers either. I n short, removing Focus from the game might actually be one of the worst ideas I can think of from a game design and depth point of view.

But, here's the thing. I don't think focus should be removed from the game.

But I despise that it's the best action you can take, nine times out of ten- and that if you're not, you're punishing yourself without it being linked. That's stupid. That's bad. If Focus weren't such an important action, you'd see more play from ships like A-Wings (RZ-1s) and whatnot, because they could actually use their agility to their fullest instead of going, "Oho, no, I need to focus" instead.

11 hours ago, MikeEvans said:

That's my entire argument.... that the "need" Target Lock fills is pretty niche in comparison to Focus. Focus covers more bases. And I did already say that the target lock persists in the text you quoted. As I said, I find that I don't often end up being able to save the TL for later if I'm trying to maximize my damage right now while I have a good shot.

See that's what I sorta hate though, is that it's so good for so many situations. It's too much of a swiss army knife action. That isn't good design.

13 minutes ago, Captain Lackwit said:

I actually kind of meant that one if I'm honest. They really did end up leaving the galaxy in a worse state at the end of the day.

But who doesn't, really?

13 minutes ago, Captain Lackwit said:

...I don't play X-Wing, or tabletops at all, to pull out a calculator and be a total joykill about things....

...That isn't good design.

There seems to be a contradiction to your stance in the two sections I have quoted above.

If you wish to talk about design, math gets involved because that’s at the core of the game. You have probability and distance to deal with. Whether you do it or not doesn’t mean the math isn’t there. It can deepen understanding and enjoyment, depending on the player. So, calling out something you think is bad design, yet reject a math based counter argument sends a very conflicted message.

I see where you are coming from, but you don’t seem to be extending the same understanding as you would like to be given. Math is part of the game because math is part of everything. If that’s not why you are in the game, that’s fine. But it seems to be a little counterproductive to want to discuss game design but not math.

I’d also like to point out that there is a myth that you can only like the math or X-Wing being a Star Wars game. That’s BS. I got in for the latter, but stay in for both. It’s not an either/or relationship.

5 minutes ago, SabineKey said:

I’d also like to point out that there is a myth that you can only like the math or X-Wing being a Star Wars game. That’s BS. I got in for the latter, but stay in for both. It’s not an either/or relationship.

It is an OR, just not Exclusive-OR.

2 minutes ago, JJ48 said:

It is an OR, just not Exclusive-OR.

Fair. It can be an “OR”. Just getting tired of people acting like you can only like one.

1 hour ago, JJ48 said:

But who doesn't, really?

Okay, actually very fair.

1 hour ago, SabineKey said:

There seems to be a contradiction to your stance in the two sections I have quoted above.

If you wish to talk about design, math gets involved because that’s at the core of the game. You have probability and distance to deal with. Whether you do it or not doesn’t mean the math isn’t there. It can deepen understanding and enjoyment, depending on the player. So, calling out something you think is bad design, yet reject a math based counter argument sends a very conflicted message.

I see where you are coming from, but you don’t seem to be extending the same understanding as you would like to be given. Math is part of the game because math is part of everything. If that’s not why you are in the game, that’s fine. But it seems to be a little counterproductive to want to discuss game design but not math.

I’d also like to point out that there is a myth that you can only like the math or X-Wing being a Star Wars game. That’s BS. I got in for the latter, but stay in for both. It’s not an either/or relationship.

Uh

I never said it was an either or type thing.

42 minutes ago, Captain Lackwit said:

Uh 

I never  said it was an either or type thin  g. 

It's implied strongly enough that I understood it as 'exclusive or', too.

I wouldn't play if it wasn't starwars. But maybe you've seen my data crunching, which is almost like another hobby. Because that, too, is fun to me. Some people combine playing xwing with painting, others combine it with maths or data crunching.

On 4/6/2019 at 7:17 AM, Captain Lackwit said:

Let's talk about Focus... and why it needs to friggin' go.

Think of one more useful action in the game. You can't. There isn't one. If you don't take focus, you're losing a dice mod that's extremely handy. If you do take focus, you're giving yourself the most versatile token in the game. It is useful offensively and defensively, and while you may say, you may say that it adds a strategic aspect on when to spend it...

You have to take it instead of...

Barrel Roll.
Boost.
Target Lock (what Focus SHOULD be)
And many others.

No single action is more useful than Focus. It is the Battle Rifle of this game. The design mechanic that dominates all others because it is too good in too many scenarios, and too advantageous to use instead of others. In a game about positioning, pilot skill, and getting behind your foe, shouldn't there be more inherent value in abilities that reposition you? I believe there should be.

But no, Focus is more useful because it removes randomness- or mitigates it. That's good, but the problem is that it has to be taken instead of genuinely interesting abilities. Which is why linked abilities exist. But if it doesn't link into or from focus, you're almost straight up hurting yourself.

What if it was baked in, though? What if at range one, you didn't get another dice, but were allowed to flip an eye result? What if it was part of the range mechanics? With less dice being thrown around, there's less reason to use something like focus. After all, more dice is more odds to get more eye results, which if you focused, means a load of damage output... Or mitigation, if not outright evasion!

Stack focus on top of something like crack shot, elusive, evade, it just gets frustrating.

I do not like that Focus is an action. If anything, it should be a reward for getting into range one. If this were the case, you'd be working with better odds anyway, but not dishing out more firepower- just having way better chances of hitting something. Which I think makes a lot of sense.

Good luck firing a pro torp from Wedge using just a focus.

Focus is the all rounder action for sure, but the others are better at what they do, as Focus only works if you roll focus results. Evade guarantees an evade result, no matter what you roll, and target lock allows you to blank out on an attack, and still get a chance of doing damage.

3 hours ago, Captain Lackwit said:

Why are you so rude? No, we're not trolling. I think the way Focus is implemented isn't good. I think it's basically a Battle Rifle level design choice. If it were up to me, it'd be a mod you get for being at range one offensively, (NOT extra dice). or range 3 defensively. Not. Extra dice. I simply believe that Focus has not been implemented well. It's too default. If you can you should always focus. Instead of repositioning unless that gets you out of arc. Instead of boosting, unless that gets you out of arc. You know what's worthless? Boosting into range one of something, because now you have zero dice mods, so it's a wasted action even though your move is great. Focus being the default action to such an extent is detrimental. But, you're just going to hurl insults again.

The first part about not repositioning unless you get out of arc isn't true. There are lots of other reasons you may need to reposition. Maybe you want to avoid an obstacle, or simply be in a better position for next turn. Maybe getting Bullseye is more important than taking Focus this round or maybe you need to get out the way of one of your other ships before it moves. As for an action being wasted even if the move is great, that's a contradiction. If Boosting gets you an unmodified range 1 as opposed to a modified range 2 then the Boost isn't the best move at all. Clearly you'd like it to be, but I don't think you've addressed the issues I brought up in my previous post.

Focus is actually a reward for good flying, if looked at from a certain perspective. If you dial in the right moves so you don't have to do any of the repositioning mentioned above and your ship is perfectly placed because you correctly predicted your opponent's move and set yourself up to take advantage of it Focus is a great action and acts as a general "well done" for good flying. Your proposal only makes it matter at range 1 when attacking or range 3 when defending which takes a way a whole host of nuanced decisions around repositioning that currently make the game interesting. It would also make range 1 ultra-lethal and range 3 even worse than now since you can stack Target Lock/Focus or Evade/Focus under your proposals.

I think if you start a topic trying to explain how game design is flawed it's not great to respond to challenges by hiding behind 'omg why are you even maths, guys?'.

You don't take the game very seriously and that's great, it's open to everyone. But please try to understand that the designers have taken it quite seriously and that maybe they've thought of some things that you haven't.

It's ok to make suggestions. It's ok to be wrong. Refusing to take any of that on board and just repeating your initial points until you 'win' the argument isn't going to make you look great, though.

16 minutes ago, TheCeilican said:

I think if you start a topic trying to explain how game design is flawed it's not great to respond to challenges by hiding behind 'omg why are you even maths, guys?'.

You don't take the game very seriously and that's great, it's open to everyone. But please try to understand that the designers have taken it quite seriously and that maybe they've thought of some things that you haven't.

It's ok to make suggestions. It's ok to be wrong. Refusing to take any of that on board and just repeating your initial points until you 'win' the argument isn't going to make you look great, though.

Look at my name. I don't really care about looking great. Furthermore, when somebody challenges a widely accepted convention the devs are competent... But when it's any other time, ya'll wanna be like, "oh they don't know what they're doing!"

also when did I say "WHY ARE YOU MATHING"? When did I ever discredit the feasibility of mathwing? What are you people trying to do putting words in my mouth? Furthermore I've had a busy-**** week, y'think I can waste my energy replying to every single post..?

One of the most important numbers on this forum has always been the ratio between a user's 'Likes' and the number of their posts. The closer you trend towards a 2:1 ratio (or higher!) the more likely you are to be part of the signal rather than part of the noise.

You should try to focus on raising that ratio.

I alluded to this earlier in the thread but I think it bears expansion - the thing that makes the other 4 core actions arguably "not-boring" are the very same things that make them much better at higher initiative:

Boost/BR - pretty self-explanatory. Mistakes in eyeballing notwithstanding, if you move last you know if and how a boost or barrel roll will improve your position. If you move first, you're guessing. What value this does currently have is partly the threat of blocking an enemy ace, which is currently valuable because it's the only way to force them tokenless while you can attack with other ships that are focused.

(Target) Lock - moving last ensures that you don't waste a lock on the wrong ship, and allows you to choose whether or not to lock or do a different action knowing if you're in enemy arcs. Lower initiative doesn't have that luxury.

Evade - similar to Lock, if you move last you can choose to Evade if you can see that you're in danger and don't have a shot of your own. Otherwise you risk wasting an action on it.

Which leads me to Focus. It's the only one that works better at lower initiative, because not only is it a safe default, it lets you wait and see if you need to spend it on defence before you have to choose whether to use it on attack.

Focus is really the thing that makes lower initiatives workable. Without it the whole action system is rigged against them worse than it already is. Give it to the aces who are in the driving seat of choosing range with boost/BR and you outright break the game unless one of two things happen too. Those being a full recosting making high-initiative cost much much more (and have matches decided by initiative bid) or do away with initiative deciding turn order entirely (at which point you've effectively got a whole new game).

2 hours ago, TheCeilican said:

One of the most important numbers on this forum has always been the ratio between a user's 'Likes' and the number of their posts. The closer you trend towards a 2:1 ratio (or higher!) the more likely you are to be part of the signal rather than part of the noise.

You should try to focus on raising that ratio.

I... I don't care about popularity numbers games.

I say what I think in earnest. If that isn't popular, so the **** be it? Virtual likes do nothing for me in my daily life. Do you actually care about that? If so... why? To achieve that would mean echoing people. I do not do that.

10 minutes ago, Dasharr said:

I alluded to this earlier in the thread but I think it bears expansion - the thing that makes the other 4 core actions arguably "not-boring" are the very same things that make them much better at higher initiative:

Boost/BR - pretty self-explanatory. Mistakes in eyeballing notwithstanding, if you move last you know if and how a boost or barrel roll will improve your position. If you move first, you're guessing. What value this does currently have is partly the threat of blocking an enemy ace, which is currently valuable because it's the only way to force them tokenless while you can attack with other ships that are focused.

(Target) Lock - moving last ensures that you don't waste a lock on the wrong ship, and allows you to choose whether or not to lock or do a different action knowing if you're in enemy arcs. Lower initiative doesn't have that luxury.

Evade - similar to Lock, if you move last you can choose to Evade if you can see that you're in danger and don't have a shot of your own. Otherwise you risk wasting an action on it.

Which leads me to Focus. It's the only one that works better at lower initiative, because not only is it a safe default, it lets you wait and see if you need to spend it on defence before you have to choose whether to use it on attack.

Focus is really the thing that makes lower initiatives workable. Without it the whole action system is rigged against them worse than it already is. Give it to the aces who are in the driving seat of choosing range with boost/BR and you outright break the game unless one of two things happen too. Those being a full recosting making high-initiative cost much much more (and have matches decided by initiative bid) or do away with initiative deciding turn order entirely (at which point you've effectively got a whole new game).

...You know, that might really honestly be the best case for it?

It's not about being popular it's about being relevant.

5 hours ago, Captain Lackwit said:

Uh

I never said it was an either or type thing.

You might not have directly said it, but it’s the impression you gave. And I’m not the only one who got that impression.

7 hours ago, Captain Lackwit said:

... to pull out a calculator and be a total joykill about things...

...I'm playing it because it's Star Wars, and Star Wars is (supposed to be) fun...

These two statements, made very close to each other, seem to indicate that doing the math makes you a killjoy and that just liking x-Wing because it’s Star Wars because it is fun is the right way.

That’s not to say there aren’t individual cases where this is true. But enjoying the math of X-Wing and using/explaining it doesn’t make you a killjoy, nor does one have to ignore it to have fun. I have friends who are engineers and the like who work out the probability of actions for fun because that’s what the love. And believe me, they use more actions than just the focus. Again, the focus action is a tool. It’s the most versatile, but that doesn’t make it the right action every time. It can’t fire torps, it can’t guarantee at least one evade result (not if you don’t roll eyeballs), it can’t get you out of some’s arc, or get you in range for your other toys to do their work.

9 hours ago, TheCeilican said:

One of the most important numbers on this forum has always been the ratio between a user's 'Likes' and the number of their posts. The closer you trend towards a 2:1 ratio (or higher!) the more likely you are to be part of the signal rather than part of the noise.

You should try to focus on raising that ratio.

Well, I don't know. Lackwit and I just got put in the basket, and I have a 1.94.

I guess that means I'm relevant--except when I'm being a scoundrel.